London — A striking portrait of the novelist E. M. Forster by his friend, the art historian and painter Roger Fry, set a new world record for the artist at auction when it sold for £325,000 at Bonhams Modern British and Irish Art sale on July 1. It had been estimated at £30,000-50,000. The sale made a total of £2,000,000 with 80% sold by lot and 85% sold
auction results
New York — Swann Galleries offered four sales of Fine Art this June, each one proving audiences are undeterred by the remote bidding format due to social distancing guidelines.
African-American Fine Art was held on Thursday, June 4, with the auction surpassing its pre-sale high estimate totaling $3.5 million. The top lot in the sale was Richmond Barthé’s cast bronze sculpture Feral
Chicago – Hindman’s auction of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana realized $461,725, achieving strong sell-through rates of 94% by lot and 113% by value. Following the success of a record-setting 2019 for the Books and Manuscripts department, Hindman’s first Fine Books and Manuscripts including Americana auction of the year once again exceeded expectations. Strong presale
New York – Christie’s is pleased to report that the first dated printing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” achieved a total of $325,000 on Christie’s online sale platform. This rare newspaper printing was the first to appear at auction and was available for online bidding from June 2-18, 2020, as part of
Edinburgh — One of the few first edition copies of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, inscribed and signed by J.K. Rowling was sold by Lyon & Turnbull auctioneers in Edinburgh on June 17 for £125,000. The price is a new European auction record.
Famously the first edition, first impression hardback of the first Harry
New York — A 13-page handwritten and signed letter from Ludwig Wittgenstein to Moritz Schlick discussing Gödel's incompleteness theorems, set a new world record for a Wittgenstein letter at Bonhams online-only Essential Genius: Ten Important Manuscripts for Modern Times sale. It sold for $137,575.
Written in 1935 when Wittgenstein
Berkeley, CA – PBA Galleries announced world record-breaking results from their June 4th auction of Comic Books: Pre-Code Horror, Silver Age Marvel, and Undergrounds. The sale was PBA’s inaugural comic book auction under the direction of Ivan Briggs, whose catalogue showcased “the best overlooked gems in the world of comics, all the good
Dallas – A ledger drawing by a Southern Cheyenne artist soared to $106,250 to establish a world record for a single ledger drawing and to lead Heritage Auctions’ Ethnographic Art: American Indian, Pre-Columbian and Tribal Auction Featuring the I.S.K. Reeves V and Sara W. Reeves
New York — Swann Galleries’ Thursday, May 7 sale of Printed & Manuscript African Americana was held live online and was conducted remotely. “This was a strong auction regardless of the circumstances. The sale concluded with 90% of lots finding buyers, a record in this category at Swann, and a total of $744,112, well above high estimate. Institutions generally make a good showing in these
Philadelphia— Continuing its success with private collections and single-owner sales, Freeman’s achieved a 96% sell-through rate for its May 7 auction of The P.G. Wodehouse Collection of William Toplis. The house is pleased to add this strong sell-through rate for a single-owner collection to its list of recent single-
